Talking Ass wrote:Sure, but like numerous of your conversations these endless speculations and fine points and asides lead one away from the core fact that people and nations rise and fall on their strengths and weaknesses: on their 'virtue' or lack of it. But clearly, Machiavelli and de Toqueville have been important in helping me order my own conceptions.

But as usual you didn't understand my point before dismissing it; that your core fact is just a supposition. It doesn't matter, clearly you've studied the topic only briefly and selectively. And like numerous of your monologues your speculations and "fine points" are not as thought out as you want to make people believe with your name and book dropping.

Lets for fun examine in detail your "core fact"

people and nations rise and fall on their strengths and weaknesses: on their 'virtue' or lack of it

You're saying the success, the rise, of a people or nation depends on, well, their success. Their current strength on, well, some earlier strength perhaps. The amazing institutions they formed arose out of, well, earlier amazing foundations. And they all fall down, weak, because of, no wait!, I get it now, because of: their weakness. These magical inner virtues, well, they arose because? God handed them out I suppose, to the first in line.

How insightful. Just garbage. Just grandstanding. You're saying nothing. Even just parroting Machiavelli is not working out. Try some serious work.

No, no, I understood it. It is quite common sensical. But the 'success' I am speaking about---if we are making a comparison between Latin America and the English colonies---comes about through managing all the favorable factors, prior knowledge and experience, and establishing a correct foundation. There is a line in the I-Ching 'to move a heavy load, use white rushes underneath' (first line 6-gram 28). When you are planning an extraordinary enterprise plan things out very nicely at the beginning. If the beginning is established well, the outcome often will be fruitful.

The Spanish-American republics were established on generally short-sighted foundation and goals. It is not that it couldn't have been done differently and it is not that the information was not there. Many planners, intellectuals and wealthy were acutely aware of the American independance and were very intrigued by it. The same culture information was just as much in the hands of the Spanish colonists as it was the English colonists.

You could say the success of an enterprise depends on a prior success: that is what wisdom is. Knowing what is 'wise' and employing it wisely.

In the case of Latin America, because the foundation was not establsihed nicely in any of the republics, they have been forever hobbled. Initial problems compound with new problems and got worse. It turns into an endless mess that only gets more and more distorted as history progresses. Until the point of reform. Then, better ways and means are, as it were, 'retro-fitted'.

At the moment you are trying to punch above your weight.
You are David going up against Goliath without a sling shot.
If you wandered into a Dojo your face would be slapped.
In aboriginal culture you would be placed in a freshly dug hole at a remote location, buried up to your shoulders and left there to rant and rave for at least a month until the spirit of recklessness was broken in you.
If you were Eskimo you'd be kicked out of the igloo and that would be it.

QRS are your greatest friends and you dont know it.

Your way to get real would be to get up to speed with the conversation and come with the utmost respect for the leaders in the conversation. To enable that you have to get clear on the definitions of the words being used here. Most of the difficulty here is people haven't clearly defined the words being used. The 'picture' cant be grokked using faulty definitions.
Its wax on/wax off time for you I'm afraid.

Diebert calls you to undertake serious work.

Your task is to compile a lexicon that delivers crisp, accurate definitions of the key words used in the QRS conversation, with a humility and grace and spirit of service that would astonish even the most cynical of your critics. That would be getting real.

Talking Ass wrote:Many planners, intellectuals and wealthy were acutely aware of the American independance and were very intrigued by it. The same culture information was just as much in the hands of the Spanish colonists as it was the English colonists. .... In the case of Latin America, because the foundation was not establsihed nicely in any of the republics, they have been forever hobbled. Initial problems compound with new problems and got worse. It turns into an endless mess that only gets more and more distorted as history progresses. Until the point of reform. Then, better ways and means are, as it were, 'retro-fitted'.

The thing is, that you haven't yet begun to address the many possible causes to why different decisions in "planning" were made, how exactly the foundations weren't established "nicely", and all the various factors leading towards that. Likewise it's a question of selecting one of many competing theories which would lead to the conviction which "reform", which "medication" would lead to healthier developments.

This is what I meant when you asked what I thought about your initial analysis. It seemed very selective, heavily dug into a certain reactionary, 'patriotic' viewpoint, and not even trying to delve too much into the multitude of the whole causality of it. Which made it all pretty uninteresting to me, not much to agree or disagree with. Just lacking.

Diebert, I'll leave it to you to delve into that subject and then explain the different causes as to 'why' those different decisions were not made. For you, who seems to have a questionable and uncertain relationship with these issues, it seems it will turn into another labyrinth of endless considerations. This is kind of your bent, isn't it? You certainly could never be considered a 'man of action', right? You are a man of endless rumination that seems to end in nil as far as the physical universe stands, and your place in it as a 'body'. Your real 'effectiveness' seems to be in coursing endlessly through abstractions removed from physicality. Indeed, this is where 'God' exists for you.

Yet it is true that to arrive at a decision in the present (say in terms of reform of the economy and old-boy system of LA) one would have to take action, make specific decisions in the present, and in this sense not be dissuaded by 'endless considerations'. And the 'decisions' that a growing faction in the LA intellectual and technocratic community desire to take are indeed based in 'conservative economic principals'. I have little doubt that you, given the opportunity, could swim deeply down into the subject---get really subjective in it---and never be able to make any decision at all. Or, you might take the side of some utterly idealistic faction because it accords with your abstract philosophical principals, whatever in fact they are, which is none too easy to discern.

Diebert writes: "This is what I meant when you asked what I thought about your initial analysis. It seemed very selective, heavily dug into a certain reactionary, 'patriotic' viewpoint, and not even trying to delve too much into the multitude of the whole causality of it. Which made it all pretty uninteresting to me, not much to agree or disagree with. Just lacking."

Yes, Diebert, I think you are beginning to get a much better sense of where I am coming from. The endless delving into the endless 'multitude of causality' of it is really YOUR department. It's your area of expertise. All my ideas come as a result of a long long time spent on the ground. At this point I'm less interested in theory and unending considerations but in specific actions. In this sense I am not alone: the people who are making forward strides in LA are acting in the present and achieving tangible results.

As to 'patriotism' it does not at all surprise me that a few mentiones of admiration for ASPECTS of what my own country has achieved would be misconstrued as patriotism in the negative sense you wish to imply. Rather I am interested in countering (in LA and when I encounter it) the false and innaccurate condemnation of the US which is a sort of disease in the minds of many people these days, and not only in LA but in your neck of the woods. Truthfully? I see your labyrintian, multitudinous reflecting as having links to that mind-set, but I suppose that is neither here-nor-there...

Anything else you want to talk about before this little conversation fades?

Talking Ass wrote:it will turn into another labyrinth of endless considerations.

A labyrinth of interrelated causes: causality to give it one overarching name. It's not an unwillingness to delve into a few considerations but that's not why I am here at this forum. For now it's enough to point out just the presence of valid, well understood and broadly supported alternative views. The reason I do this is because from experience I learned that people who are dug in too deeply don't even notice when perfectly valid and researched points are offered. So I take a few steps back and try to find out exactly at which point the believer's mind starts blanking. It's my own research project!

Your real 'effectiveness' seems to be in coursing endlessly through abstractions removed from physicality. Indeed, this is where 'God' exists for you.

How effective or "physical" you think your discourse is? And how would you measure? By your own yardstick I suppose. Which makes your criticism null and void. Easily written though.

All my ideas come as a result of a long long time spent on the ground. At this point I'm less interested in theory and unending considerations but in specific actions.

This seems fair enough. But still, you're challenging others to address your ideas with more substance. And when a feeble approach is undertaken, you shriek about being not interested in theory and unending considerations. Make up your mind!

The colonial heritage of land inequality is still, after two centuries of independence, a major pillar of persistent high levels of income inequality in Latin America (World Bank 2004). The Iberian colonial administration deliberately redistributed land from indigenous peasants to the Creole elite. For the Spanish Crown land was a convenient resource to reward the early colonists’ efforts of conquest, conversion and settlement. With the creation of distinct Spanish and Indian estates the distribution of land also came to reflect a separation of political, juridical and administrative spheres. The institution of the encomienda provided the large colonial estates (latifundia) (and the silver mines) with supplies of indigenous labour. In Brazil and the Caribbean large plantations were driven by imported African slaves producing tropical cash crops such as sugar, cocoa and coffee. The omni-present Catholic church further enhanced land inequality as large land holdings materialized its position as the supreme religious authority. In other words, land inequality was a core ingredient of the colonial order in Spanish America and Brazil (Bakewell 2004, Williamson 1992, Fernandez-Armesto 2003).

This is an example of what I mean with causes, colonial history and class societies arising out of land disputes are underlaying a lot of "problem zones" around the globe, e.g. Palestine/Israel. It was not a particular problem for the pilgrims arriving at the New Land, I suppose. And in older populated lands things have somewhat settled by now, "stiffened" by many centuries of blood letting.

the false and inaccurate condemnation of the US which is a sort of disease in the minds of many people these days, and not only in LA but in your neck of the woods.

There's a lot of criticism to go around. Being technically an "empire" which so much influence and action (with real consequences!) around the globe just will draw a lot of heat. It should not be surprising or cause for dismissal, neither should it be called "disease". Actually this hostilely towards a swelling of negative feedback contains the seed of fascism, blind hubris, the same things people mention a lot after trying to talk with the more feverish type of know-it-all Americans clinging to their old awesome overspend glory. It doesn't mean we're not standing at times in awe of what's being accomplished down the road. But it also doesn't mean it's one package to "take or leave".

Diebert wrote: "There's a lot of criticism to go around. Being technically an "empire" which so much influence and action (with real consequences!) around the globe just will draw a lot of heat. It should not be surprising or cause for dismissal, neither should it be called "disease". Actually this hostilely towards a swelling of negative feedback contains the seed of fascism, blind hubris, the same things people mention a lot after trying to talk with the more feverish type of know-it-all Americans clinging to their old awesome overspend glory. It doesn't mean we're not standing at times in awe of what's being accomplished down the road. But it also doesn't mean it's one package to "take or leave"."

It is a disease when it is a disease. I am trying to speak from LA perspectives and I have hung around the universities speaking to a younger set. In Latin America---to speak quite broadly---there is a mental disease of contempt for the US that is based in sloganism, certain 'discourses' floating around, an a very compelling fashion or hipness: it is not cool and not seen as intelligent to appreciate or to understand the US. What I am talking about has nothing to do with reasoned criticism. I will offer you one example because it is close to home: Nat on KIR. He's American but he is well in his 'disease' of hating America. He lives off it and yet he has only contempt for it. It is very intricate and very 'psychological'. One finds the same 'cluster' in LA. It seems reasoned and thoughtful on the exterior but when you go into it you see that it is semi-conscious and unreasoned: again psychological.

It is very, very different to sit with a reasonable, balanced person and discuss the merits and failings of the US (or any other place). Situated in 'reality' a revealing and interesting conversation can take place.

"Actually this hostilely towards a swelling of negative feedback contains the seed of fascism, blind hubris..."

Not in the sense I am speaking about it. (See above).

Diebert, this is going to be my last post for awhile. I needed to finish up with my last series of posts, which met my standards, but it is true 'conversation' here is a dead-end road.